Stranger than Fiction
by WoLvE52
Summary: "If I say Science isn't always right, then I am going against everything I was ever taught. If I state the Supernatural is impossible, then I am denying my brother's very presence and existence." Ed enters into a world that has always been there but that he never knew existed. Follow Ed throughout this story as he learns how to deal with the life he now must live. RoyEd later
1. Prologue

**Stranger than Fiction**

**Prologue:**

Equivalent Exchange, the founding principal of alchemy, is a statement that holds true along with all the other fundamentals that explain everything in the world and how it was created. As an Alchemist, I believe and trust in those principals and laws. Opposite to Science is the Supernatural. There was once a time that my younger brother and I regarded it as fiction, a simple fairy tale that would be told to children as a bedtime story. We simply told ourselves it was fake. Now I cannot simply push it away as I used to.

If I say Science isn't always right, then I am going against everything I was ever taught.

If I state the Supernatural is impossible, then I am denying my brother's very presence and existence.

It's hard to see the truth when you're seemingly stuck in the middle of two opposites. No matter how hard I try, I cannot connect them in such a way that they can easily co-exist, there is always something counteracting the two. I don't know what the real truth is anymore. These two forces are seemingly tearing me apart, slowly driving me crazy as I dig deeper to try to find some way to make sense of it all.

Or maybe I've already lost it. I just don't know what to think anymore.

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**AN. **

**Hey guys. So with this being our first co-written fanfic, reviews are definitely welcome. This story is eventually gonna be a RoyEd story but we are looking for more pairing ideas. Anyway, tell us what you think and we will be sure to update, hopefully within the next week if we get enough reviews. Hoped you guys enjoyed it so far. **

**REVIEW PEOPLE, REVIEW! We need to see what you people think before we continue with the story.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Stranger than Fiction**

**Chapter 1**

This was wrong. It wasn't supposed to react like this. I watched as the colours of the transmutation changed from blue to red and black. This was wrong, what did I miscalculate. I was snapped out of my thoughts by my brother yelling my name.

"ED!" His tone was panicked and as I looked over I realized why. Little black hands seemed to be grabbing at his body, pulling it towards a gate that had suddenly appeared.

"Al!" I shouted back, but as I went to grab his hand I was tugged back. Looking down, I saw the same little hands gripping at my leg. They were taking it apart and I gasped out in pain. It hurt like crazy but I turned back to Al. The hands were pulling him closer and closer to the gate and he kept calling out my name. I reached out to grab his hand but a second before I got to it, he disappeared and my world went white.

I looked around but all I saw was the gate from earlier and white. I furrowed my brow in confusion before a voice spoke out.

"Yo."

I turned around to locate the voice and saw a humanoid figure. The only difference was the fact that it was completely white but was surrounded in a black aura. I asked who it was and it replied in an amused tone.

"I'm glad you asked that." It replied, "I am what you call the world. Or perhaps the universe, or perhaps God, or perhaps truth, or perhaps all, or perhaps one, and I am also you." The second that the last word was out of his mouth the gate behind me opened up and with a last "Welcome, you stupid fool who doesn't know his own place," the same black hands that I had seen earlier dragged me inside. I was scared and screaming as I tried to get away but 'truth' just told me to "pipe down" and that this was what I wanted wasn't it. As the gate began to close and I desperately reached out in one last attempt to get out, it told me that it would "show me the truth." With that, the gate slammed closed and I tumbled into the darkness.

As I was falling through the darkness, pictures and images bombarded my brain. It was like all the information in the world was being poured directly into my head. I told it to stop because my head felt like it would split but the information just kept coming. It was completely overwhelming and it felt as if my head would explode. Then suddenly, I understood. This was truth. Just like that, I was kicked back out of the gate and back into the never-ending white room.

"How was it?" 'Truth' asked.

I turned around and walked back towards the gate, mumbling under my breath. My theories and equations weren't wrong but it was missing something. The truth about human transmutation was just ahead. I asked 'Truth' to show me again, but it just stood up.

"I can't," it said. "I can only show you this much for the price you paid." I frowned in confusion and replied,

"Price?"

"Yes, price," it replied and as it stepped forward I saw my right leg being decomposed and recomposed as truth's. I gasped and it continued. "It's an equivalent exchange, right alchemist?"

And just like that I was back in my world, screaming and holding my bleeding stump of a leg. It was pure agony. I swallowed my pain down a bit as I surveyed the room. Al's clothes were lying deserted on the ground and when I looked into the circle to see if the transmutation worked, I saw a monster. It was all blood, guts, hair, and bone. This was wrong, it couldn't be real. I couldn't have lost both my mother and Al, I refused to let that happen. I screamed at 'truth' trying to get its attention.

"Not Al, you are not taking my little brother away from me! Take my arm, take my other leg, I don't care but he's all I have left and you are not taking my little brother!" With that I clapped my hands together and performed my first bit of alchemy without a transmutation circle. Right after that, I lost consciousness.

When I next awoke, it was to a dull throbbing pain. I could hear the shuffling of feet and smell the scent of polishing oil and grease. I tried to recall the events that took place earlier and flashes of memories returned. There was the circle, my theorems and equations, the transmutation, the gate, 'truth', something about a toll, and…

"Al!" I gasped out as I quickly sat up and a wet cloth fell from where it had been resting on my forehead; strange that I didn't notice that earlier. I cast thoughts of the cloth out of my mind and frantically looked around the room. I was in a bedroom. It looked like one of the spare rooms at Winry's house and I was proven right when my eyes caught those of my childhood friend. She was standing by the bedside table, refilling a water basin that I assumed the cloth had come from. Her eyes were red, presumably from tears, and her cloths were quite ruffled suggesting that she hadn't slept much.

"Ed…" She was looking at me with sadness and some pity in her blue eyes and I looked down at myself. My eyes widened when I took the sight in. Bandages covered the stumps that I had for a right arm and left leg and I remembered 'truth' saying something about a toll. However, I couldn't remember him taking my arm, I just remembered the leg. The second that those thoughts entered my head, I remembered my demand before I had passed out. My eyes flew back up to Winry's as the questions were running through my head.

'Did it work? Was Al back?'

"Al," I began voicing my thoughts to her. "Where is he?" The question seemed simple enough but the second the words were out Winry's eyes began to water and tears started running silently down her cheeks.

"He…" She hiccupped before she burst into sobs and tried to force the words through her tears. Confusion was the first thing I felt before dread began sinking in as I heard her words. "H…He's d…dead E…Ed. A…Al is g…gone."

**AN/**

**Okay so Chapter one is up and we'll start working on chapter two. Hopefully it will be up by next week but we need some motivation. Show us that someone is actually reading this story and leave us either a critique or a review. We need opinions on whether or not this story should be continued. We do have countless ideas of our own for where this story is headed but it won't be any good if we have no interested readers.**


	3. Chapter 2

Stranger Than Fiction

Chapter 2

**AN: Here's Chapter 2 for you! A big thanks to Animegirl17 and Clair Aragon for reviewing! I hope you all enjoy this chapter!**

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_"H…He's d…dead E…Ed. A…Al is g…gone."_

For a moment, those words hung in the air and time froze in the room, Winry and I didn't move from our respective places; only silence being able to witness this moment. In that moment, my breath was caught in my throat as if I had forgotten how to breathe.

'Not Al. He can't be dead. He _can't_be!' my thoughts screamed. I found myself desperately trying to piece a practical theory that would eliminate Winry's statement, make it so that it wasn't a reality that I would have to face. 'He was my only remaining family, dammit! He couldn't be dead, he just couldn't be. I just needed something, _anything,_ to prove it wrong!'

My whole body involuntarily flinched and I was zapped out of my thoughts at the feeling of the warm touch of another human being. I glanced over at Winry and the pitiful expression on her face then down at her hand, which was lightly placed over at my own. Looking down at it, I was reminded of the fact my right arm had been lost as well. It wasn't because I had forgotten; in fact it was the second thing in my mind other than Al's disappearance, and because of that, the issue itself sort of slipped my mind. I was pretty sure that I had come from meeting "Truth" with only my left leg missing. My right arm was still there at the time so maybe it was taken as payment for something else, which means...

I felt as if there was some hope left despite the things I had done. With that solution in my mind, I looked up at Winry and asked,

"Can you take me back to my house?" Her eyes widened in shock, her expression contorted with a mixture of her growing sorrow and sudden surprise.

"E-Ed...Why?" she choked on her words, as it hadn't been long since she stopped crying. I really hated when something or someone made her cry, especially if it were my fault or had something to do with me.

I tried to smile as best I could and replied, "I just need to check something, that's all."

It didn't take me too long to get to the family house after I was placed in a wheelchair. Granny Pinako offered to take me instead because there were some things that Winry didn't need to see. I was just happy that I didn't need to ask for their help.

When we entered the house, we went straight to my father's study where the transmutation was performed and Pinako opened the door for us and wheeled me in. As I met the sight that greeted me, I felt bile attempt to climb up my throat as my body tried to gag; luckily I was able to swallow it down. The stench of crusted blood and decaying material was mixed together to create the nauseating aroma of death. Distantly, I wondered if this was the same stench that was present in battlefields. I hoped right then that I would _never_ find that out.

In the darkness of the house, I could spot the large bloodstain, forever staining the floor, where that... thing had been. I could even faintly make out where it had reached out for me, especially since there was a blood trail of my own.

My brain instantly recalled the memory, much to my discontent.

I probably would have lost my composure right then and there if it weren't for the fact that the 'thing' had already been moved away. My guess was that Granny had done it, unless someone else had found me with it first.

Other than the blood splattered and smeared all over the room and the transmutation circle that we should've never used, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. All the books were on their shelves and the collection of amoured suits looked as polished and new as they had ever been.

'_Forget it, he's dead and you can't do anything about it!',_my mind cruelly mocked me of my childish denial. '_No, you gave up your arm, there must be something you got in return!'_another part of my mind argued in my defense. It felt as if my thoughts were a war with each other, trying to desperately win out against the other in order to create a final conclusion. It's kind of like a variable in an equation that you don't know the answer to or even how to solve it, you just don't know what could be the answer but both seem likely to be right.

"I've been here long enough..." I spoke, just loud enough to hear me. I barely register the fact that I'm moving. Is he really dead? Could I even be able to accept that to be a possibility? I felt my heart slowly shattering just thinking about it.

It is then that I feel a definite answer to the battle raging in my head. _He's not dead, but you can't do anything about his condition with those stumps. You need to get strong again, even more than before. This isn't the end, but the beginning._ Where this lone thought came from, I may never know, but even so; it lit a fire inside me. This wasn't going to be the end, I'd fix the mistake that I had made.

"There's some money in the closet," I spoke up, the clearest and loudest I had sounded all day.

"I'm sure it's safe," Pinako replied. I shook my head before continuing to voice my thoughts.

"No, I want you to take it for automail," I declared, looking up at her with sheer determination in my eyes. She seemed a little startled at first but gave a sigh and nodded,

"I'll get it afterwards. For now, we'll have to start the preparation if you want to go through with this."

I nodded and with that, I was wheeled off to the Rockbell house once again. I knew I wasn't making a mistake because I was now certain of two things for sure:

One, I was going to correct our mistakes.

Two, Al wasn't dead.

There was also a third point that I was certain of as well and it was that I wasn't going to let anyone stop me. This was simply a new beginning for me, and I had to be ready for it.

No matter what the future held, I would get my brother back.

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**AN: Please review if you liked it and want it continued! It makes us want to work harder and update faster. It's energizes us! Whether it be critique, an idea, or praise; we'd love to here from you!**


	4. Chapter 3

A year; It's been a year since I made the decision to get the surgery for automail. I told Granny Pinako that I can't go through with my plan with a couple of stumps. I know that Al is still alive. I don't know how I know, it's sort of like a sixth sense or maybe I'm just in a weird sense of denial but I can still sense that he is alive. I gave my arm up to get my brother back. I just need to figure out what exactly happened and track Al down. Once I find him and see what condition he's in, I'll be able to see where to go next. Pinako told me that the surgery and rehabilitation would take about three years and when I told her that I'd do it in one; her reply was that I'd be spitting blood. I was determined though, still am, and the rehabilitation was done in that one year.

Walking outside to the front of the Rockbell's, I decided it was time to make sure I was up to par and that everything was in working condition. Taking a deep breath, I clapped my hands together before transmuting a training dummy from the earth in front of me. Successfully completing my first transmutation since that night we failed to bring mom back. I shook myself out of my thoughts and focused myself entirely on the dummy. Taking a deep breath, I immersed myself entirely into the training of my body. As teacher always said, "in order to train the mind, one must train the body".

This was where Winry found me sometime later. I had decided to step it up a notch and transmuted my automail arm into a blade. Around that time was when a wrench to the head made me lose centration and, nursing my aching head, I turned to see Winry standing and silently fuming on the balcony. Well, maybe not silently.

"Hey you, don't mess up my automail! You know how hard I worked on that!"

"If it's half as hard as you throw a wrench I'd be surprised!" Was my quick reply, "For real, you could try acting more like a girl and less like a gearhead."

"You think I'm a gearhead that's fine but you had better get used to it." Putting a hand to her chest she continued, "Cause as long as you're wearing my automail, you're stuck with this gearhead whether you like it or not." With those last words, Winry turned and headed back inside.

Sighing, I transmuted my arm back to normal and turned to head back inside after Winry. However, as I reached the door, I stopped and looked back over my shoulder at the rest of Risembool. I needed to return to my home soon and look through it more thoroughly for any clues to what actually happened that night a year ago. I'm still stuck on what that bastard truth gave me in exchange for the arm that I had given up. Equivalent Exchange, the law that the universe follows; if one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. That's the law all alchemists follow and believe in and I am no different.

Turning back around, I opened the door. It was roughly midday, so I had a few hours before we would be having supper and now would be pretty much the perfect time to visit the Elric family home unless I wanted to wait till after dark. Taking a deep breath, I called out.

"Hey Winry, Lady Pinako, I'm gonna go visit the house, be back by dinner!"

"Bring Den with you! He could use the walk." I smiled at the reply, shut the door behind me and walked down the few steps to reach the ground again. Looking down at Den, lying on the ground by the Rockbell sign, I smiled slightly.

"Hey Den, you ready to go?"

With a short bark, Den got up and then we were off.

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It took some time but soon enough Den and I were standing in front of my family home. Stepping up to the front door, I turned the knob and swung it open. Turning back to Den, I called him to come on but he didn't move. Den was patiently waiting just between were the fences once stood. Lying on the ground and wagging his tail. Calling him over once more, Den just looked at me and barked once.

"Fine," Giving up on getting Den to follow, I turned back to the entry and stepped inside. "You wait here then."

The second I walked into the house, I felt a presence. Tensing, I glanced around the room but saw nothing or no-one out of the ordinary within the area. Wearily, I continued through the house, passing the kitchen, halls, and making my way to 'that bastard's' study. I couldn't explain it but something was drawing me towards it, that room where the transmutation was done no more than a year before. It was as if someone was telling me that they were waiting there and I had to admit that the closer I got, the stronger the presence became. I continued to the door, but hesitated as my hand reached the doorknob. I was debating whether or not I should shove the door open when I thought I heard something.

"_B…..r_ _w.y .an….u….ee…..m….m…i…g..t…. ."_

It could've been mistaken for the whispers of the wind, or that of a breeze, as there was no real meaning or words to the sound, but I wasn't fooled. Those were broken whispers; the only question was, from what? Steeling myself for what I might find, I shoved the door open and stepped into the room.

What greeted me was not exactly what I expected. The transmutation circle was still present in the center of the room, containing the stain of dried blood from that failed attempt from a year ago as well as the trail of blood that I myself had made. To go along with those stains, the musty, metallic scent of blood was still somewhat present, although definitely dulled down a lot from the gut wrenching scent it once was. However, the room wasn't the same as it was when I returned with Pinako before the surgery. One of the suits of armor that rested in the corner of the room had fallen over and now was sprawled out on the floor. A few of the books and papers were also scattered across the floor. It didn't make sense. The last time I was here the only things out of place were the transmutation circle itself and the blood staining the floor but now… Now it looked like someone needed a place to take out there anger and this was the only room they could find. That was insane though, as far as I knew nobody had been here since my brief revisit that month ago.

"What the…"

The temperature was dropping. I could literally feel how the temperature was dropping degree by degree. Whatever was happening, it wasn't a normal occurrence that was for sure. I scanned the room again, this time playing extremely close attention to every detail. I needed to find the cause for this. What exactly the presence I was feeling was and where it was coming from. Books, desk, papers, the armor, I couldn't find anything.

"_Bro…r"_

Tensing, and hugging myself to keep warm, I turned towards the voice. At first I couldn't see anything, but as I focused on the corner closest to the fallen suit of armor, I saw a shimmer. It was sort of like the ripple of water in a lake except there was no lake, or any form of water there. It was as if the air itself had begun to ripple and slowly but surely a figure was emerging.

"_Br..oth…r?"_

Was that..? I was speechless, the voice it couldn't be. What? The figure emerging was translucent, almost transparent but I would know that form anywhere.

"Al?" I only whispered it but by the reaction the figure gave, he definitely heard it.

"_**Brother!"**_ All at once my brother came into view and rushed at me. I only had time to think that he was still oddly translucent when he reached me. Well, the better term for it would be that he went right through me. My eyes widened in surprise and I turned around to see if it was just my imagination. However, what greeted me definitely wasn't an empty space.

Al was sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest and tears running down his face. The things that hit me hard though were how he was TRANSLUCENT, and that he looked exactly the same as he did before…. It was like he hadn't aged a day.

"Al….?"

"_Brother, I'm scared. What happened to me? Why can't I touch you, or anything else? Why don't I get hungry, or tired? Why couldn't you SEE me?"_

I was speechless. I didn't know what to do. My baby brother was back. Alphonse was actually back. His voice had a kind of whispering sense to it, it was something exclusively different; almost inhuman. That was when his words reached me. 'Couldn't; as in past tense; as in before now.

"Alphonse, how long have you been here?"

Al looked up from where he was crouched on the floor, tear tracks running down his face but disappearing before they hit the ground.

"_I…I don't know. I remember seeing you coming before in a wheelchair with Granny, but you couldn't hear or see me. I've been stuck in this room, waiting for you to come back." _

That was a year ago. Al's been stuck in the bastard's study for roughly a year with nothing to do but wait and only our failed attempt to bring mom back as a thing to look at. This was all my fault, if I hadn't decided to bring mom back, if I hadn't convinced Al that we could and would succeed, none of this would've happened. Al wouldn't be crying or upset over not physically being, he could still be living a somewhat happy live with Winry, Pinako, and I as company. I pretty much ruined my baby brother's life with one childish thought and the ignorance that came with it. We just wanted to see mom smile again, that was all we wanted. Instead we created a monster and in doing so I lost my arm, leg, and Al became some sort of spirit or ghost with no physical body. A Spirit or Ghost, those were the only two words I could use to describe the Al that I was seeing. He didn't age in all this time, he was translucent almost transparent, he can't touch or goes right through things, doesn't have any physical needs, and people can't SEE him. It's the only thing that makes sense except for the fact that it doesn't make sense. Ghosts aren't real. They can't be real, science has proven that fact, but I couldn't think of what else could possibly explain this. It doesn't make any sense!

The one thing that I know for sure right now is that I caused this mess. Now I need to be the one to fix it. I need to make this right, but I need to figure out what's happening first and to do that I need information. I need to research.

"Al, help me go through these books. We need to see if 'he' had anything on ghosts or spirits, or something that will help us figure out what exactly is going on. Can you help me?"

Al sniffed a little but nodded and stood up. As me made his way over to the bookshelf and the books left on it, I realized that he was almost floating. His feet were hovering above the ground as he walked. Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I turned to the books scattered across the floor and began my research.

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"There's nothing here!"

We had been looking through the titles of these books for anything that stood out for a while now but we still weren't finding anything. Everything here was on Alchemy and I don't know why I thought otherwise in the first place because we had read all these books already when we were looking for ways to bring mom back. Maybe I thought that I'd get lucky, find something of use and solve this mess, but nothing was ever that easy.

"_Brother, maybe we should look for it somewhere else. We might be able to find something in a larger library…."_

"That's it! Central, the central library; they have everything about anything that we may possible need to know."

"_That's great Ed, but didn't teacher say that only state alchemists have access to that library? How will we get in?"_

"They have privileges and access to otherwise restricted research materials, right? Maybe if we find someone there they might be able to give us a hand. If not then we'll just have to figure out what to do next. Whatever we do choose to do though, I think central is our best bet."

"_So what do…."_

Al was interrupted by a bark from outside and Ed shot to his feet.

"Crap, Den! I totally forgot; Granny's making dinner and I said I'd be back for it. Den's been waiting outside all this time. Come on Al, let's go."

"_But brother, I can't leave. I've already tried but it never works!"_

"I'm not leaving without you Al, not again; so let's go!"

Standing outside the door I turned to face Al and waited. Cautiously, Al stepped towards me but hesitated just before the doorway.

"What are you waiting for! I said I'm not leaving without you and I mean it. Try one more time, you can do it."

Al just nodded silently before stepping forward.

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**AN**** - **

**Hey, Readers! Sc0rPi052 here; I'm sorry that it took so long for this chapter to be updated but it kinda slipped my mind. Between my work over the summer, year end provincials, school starting up again, and my reading of other fanfics; I got incredibly distracted. For that I am sorry; we'll try to keep updating weekly, or at least every two weeks but I'm not gonna go making any promises just in case something like this happens again. **

**I also just want to be sure that people know that the only things in this story belonging exclusively to us are the plot-line (baseline ideas) and any OC's we may choose to throw into it. Fullmetal Alchemist itself and all the characters, original plot for it, and a few of the quotes or saying in this story all belong to Hiromu Arakawa.**

**Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and we will try to update sooner rather than later.**

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